Education for Social Development: Curricular Models and Issues

Education for social development is emerging as an important component of professional education in the human services. This paper identifies the underlying assumptions, knowledge base, and goals of social devel­opment practice. The paper also identifies four models of social devel­opment practice of rele­vance to the educa­tion of social workers for social develop­ment: the Person­al Social Ser­vices Model; the Social Welfare Model; the Social Develop­ment Model; and, the New World Order Model. Eight levels of social develop­ment prac­tice are identi­fied as are the dominant insti­tu­tional sec­tors within which development practice occurs. The paper also discuss­es organi­zation­al issues associ­ated with the introduc­tion of varying degrees of social develop­ment con­tent into individual educational pro­grams

Global Change and Indicators of Social Development

Knowledge-based intervention has been a hallmark of community practice since the turn of the last century. Indeed, the social survey movement of the 1900s was a direct outgrowth of efforts on the part of community practitioners to systematically: 1) identify the nature, extent and severity of new and emerging social needs in their communities; 2) organize people and institutions to respond more effectively to those needs; and 3) establish baseline measures against which intervention successes and failures could be assessed (Zimbalist, 1977). Even the renaming of one of the profession’s leading journals of the day, Charities and Commons, to The Survey illustrates the importance that practitioners assigned to the role of scientific inquiry for advancing practice. Mary Richmond’s Social Diagnosis (1917) offered further reinforcement of the powerful relationship that practitioners recognized to exist between knowledge-based intervention and the realization of more effective outcomes. Today, of course, community practitioners all over the world seek to incorporate rigorous approaches to needs assessment, planning, program development and evaluation in their work with communities and other social collectivities (Andrews, 1996; Balaswamy & Dabelko, 2002;Chow & Coulton, 1996; Conner et al., 1999; Drummond, 1995; Johnson, 2002; Sawicki & Flynn, 1996; Schultz et al., 2000; Telfair & Mulvihill, 2000; Wong & Hillier, 2001; Zackary, 1995)

The Sexual Exploitation of Children: A Guide to the Empirical Literature

The bibliography that follow was designed to introduce readers to the very rich theoretical and empirical literatures relating to child abuse, child sexual abuse, child sexual exploitation, and the commercial sexual exploitation of children. The bibliography also contains introductory references to the international child rights movement, including worldwide efforts to protect children from sexual exploitation. Throughout, the bibliography contains references to research of an international and comparative nature. Charts 1 & 2 define the major concepts used in preparing the bibliography

United States-Based Conceptualization of International Social Work Education

The paper introduces readers to the nature and variety of American-based international practice at seven levels of analysis. The paper provides a historical backdrop for contemporary practice and suggests options available to American social workers in integrating the international dimensions of social work in their day-to-day practice both at home and when working in other countries. A generous bibliography is included in the papers as are references to libraries of widely available electronic resources

The World Social Situation: Development Challenges at the Outset of a New Century

World social development has arrived at a critical turning point. Economically advanced nations have made significant progress toward meeting the basic needs of their populations; however, the majority of developing countries have not. Problems of rapid population growth, failing economies, famine, environmental devastation, majority-minority group conflicts, increasing militarization, among others, are pushing many developing nations toward the brink of social chaos. This paper focuses on worldwide development trends for the 40-year period 1970-2009. Particular attention is given to the disparities in development that exist between the world’s “rich” and “poor” countries as well as the global forces that sustain these disparities. The paper also discusses more recent positive trends occurring within the world’s “socially least developed countries” (SLDCs), especially those located in Africa and Asia, in reducing poverty and in promoting improved quality of life for increasing numbers of their populations

Health and Development in Asia: Regional Priorities for a New Century

Asia is one of the world’s most rapidly developing regions. Even so, the majority of Asian countries continue to experience slow-moderate rates of economic growth, high inflation, rapid population growth, and comparatively high levels of ethnic tension and civil unrest. Poverty, ill-health, and broad-based maldevelopment also continue to be major features of Asian social development. In general, the absence of strong intra-regional cooperation on a broad range of social, political, economic, and health issues compounds Asia’s asynchronous development patterns

The Public-Private Mix in National and International Development

Social welfare is a complex, multi-dimensional, field of practice that seeks to promote the well-being of people everywhere. But national responses to social welfare differ dramatically from one society to the next and, often, valid comparisons between different nations and systems of social welfare are difficult to undertake. This paper addresses that issue by introducing an innovative approach to welfare policy analysis using a Private-Public Development Mix (PPDM) model. The PPDM draws on all four of social welfare’s core institutions—the State, the family & household, the Market, and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs)—as well as four sets of social challenges for which national and international policy responses are needed. The utility of the model is demonstrated through analyses of public-private responses to poverty alleviation efforts in the United States and to advancing compulsory primary and middle school education among rural children living in two of China’s poorest regions

New civil engineering program criteria: The rest of the story

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) organized the Civil Engineering Program Criteria Task Committee in October 2012 whose charge is to determine if the current ABET Civil Engineering Program Criteria (CEPC) should be changed to reflect one or more of the 24 outcomes of the second edition of the Civil Engineering Body of Knowledge published in 2008. After two years of work, a proposed CEPC has been approved by the relevant ASCE committees and forwarded to ABET for approval and incorporation into accreditation criteria. A paper chronicling the committee’s efforts through a review of the literature, the committee’s methodology and process, and the key issues that emerged was presented at the 2014 ASEE Annual Conference in Indianapolis. This paper updates that effort by presenting the resulting proposed criteria, the changes generated by constituency feedback, progress on the Commentary, the existing gap between the proposed accreditation criteria and the current body of knowledge, and the future work of the committee

A review of the ecological effectiveness of subtidal marine reserves in Central California, Part I: Synopsis of scientific investigations

Marine reserves, often referred to as no-take MPAs, are defined as areas within which human activities that can result in the removal or alteration of biotic and abiotic components of an ecosystem are prohibited or greatly restricted (NRC 2001). Activities typically curtailed within a marine reserve are extraction of organisms (e.g., commercial and recreational fishing, kelp harvesting, commercial collecting), mariculture, and those activities that can alter oceanographic or geologic attributes of the habitat (e.g., mining, shore-based industrial-related intake and discharges of seawater and effluent). Usually, marine reserves are established to conserve biodiversity or enhance nearby fishery resources. Thus, goals and objectives of marine reserves can be inferred, even if they are not specifically articulated at the time of reserve formation. In this report, we review information about the effectiveness of the three marine reserves in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary (Hopkins Marine Life Refuge, Point Lobos Ecological Reserve, Big Creek Ecological Reserve), and the one in the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary (the natural area on the north side of East Anacapa Island). Our efforts to objectively evaluate reserves in Central California relative to reserve theory were greatly hampered for four primary reasons; (1) few of the existing marine reserves were created with clearly articulated goals or objectives, (2) relatively few studies of the ecological consequences of existing reserves have been conducted, (3) no studies to date encompass the spatial and temporal scope needed to identify ecosystem-wide effects of reserve protection, and (4) there are almost no studies that describe the social and economic consequences of existing reserves. To overcome these obstacles, we used several methods to evaluate the effectiveness of subtidal marine reserves in Central California. We first conducted a literature review to find out what research has been conducted in all marine reserves in Central California (Appendix 1). We then reviewed the scientific literature that relates to marine reserve theory to help define criteria to use as benchmarks for evaluation. A recent National Research Council (2001) report summarized expected reserve benefits and provided the criteria we used for evaluation of effectiveness. The next step was to identify the research projects in this region that collected information in a way that enabled us to evaluate reserve theory relative to marine reserves in Central California. Chapters 1-4 in this report provide summaries of those research projects. Contained within these chapters are evaluations of reserve effectiveness for meeting specific objectives. As few studies exist that pertain to reserve theory in Central California, we reviewed studies of marine reserves in other temperate and tropical ecosystems to determine if there were lessons to be learned from other parts of the world (Chapter 5). We also included a discussion of social and economic considerations germane to the public policy decision-making processes associated with marine reserves (Chapter 6). After reviewing all of these resources, we provided a summary of the ecological benefits that could be expected from existing reserves in Central California. The summary is presented in Part II of this report. (PDF contains 133 pages.